Prepper Book Festival 12: Coloring Flower Mandalas

Taking a break from your preps is something we all need to do from time to time and what better way than to immerse yourself in a calming and relaxing hobby. This time around, I am not going to tell you to go camping like I did early this week. Instead I am going to ask you to break out the coloring books and start coloring.

What can I say about this book? First of all, the 30 drawings in Coloring Flower Mandalas: 30 Hand-drawn Designs for Mindful Relaxation are hand drawn and unique. These are not the stock drawings you see in a lot of coloring books these days. Some of the drawings are simple and easy,while others are more complex. Or, perhaps better said, are as complex as you want them to be.

Here is a sample that I completed using pencils as well as glittery and sparkly gel pens (although the glittery part does not show up very well).

The best part of Wendy’s designs are that you can just pick up a pencil and go. Use whatever colors suit your mood and let serendipity and spontaneity take over. It is impossible to mess up and go wrong. By the way, coloring is for the men and not just the ladies so there is no reason to be shy or bashful about it.

Today’s interview questions are a departure for the norm and were created specifically for Wendy. Enjoy learning more about her then check in below to enter the giveaway.

An Interview with Wendy Piersall, Author of Coloring Flower Mandalas

Tell me about your book and how you came to “write” it?

I have been a blogger at Woo! Jr. Kids Activities since 2008, and drew up some animal mandala coloring pages 7 years ago for my readers. Ulysses Press found them and offered me a book deal in 2013, and I jumped at the chance!

Coloring Flower Mandalas was my second book with them, and it came out in the spring of 2015. I’ve always been artistic and crafty, but these books have been the first professional illustration project of my career. I could draw them for the rest of my life and be happy with that!

Adult coloring has exploded these past few years. Can you pinpoint why this happened?

Adult coloring books have been around since the 1970’s, but started getting popular in France around 2012. In the spring of 2015 the market definitely exploded, but I’m not exactly sure what happened to tip it all over the edge. Some of it was that books were coming out and actually selling quite well, which was covered heavily by the news. Another part of it is that some of the artwork started going viral, and word spread fast.

There seems to be something for everyone in the coloring book genre and certainly I have gone through a lot of trial and error in selecting my own coloring books. Do you have some advice for those that are interested in getting started but don’t know where to begin?

Since the market has gotten incredibly saturated with thousands of adult coloring books, unfortunately a lot of people have hastily tried to jump on the bandwagon and have been slapping clip art into PDFs and calling them adult coloring books.

I would recommend actually going into a store and browsing physical books if possible. The quality of paper, size of the drawings, and overall quality of the book printing are all things that aren’t well conveyed online.

If that’s not an option, I recommend buying books that have an inside preview of the drawings, such as customer images or Amazon’s Look Inside previews, or at least a few reviews. As for topics, you are correct! There’s an adult coloring book available for just about everyone, men included!

Something I always need to ask: do you personally prepare and if so, what got you started?

I am not a prepper. I can hardly handle preparing for a normal week of a busy family of 5 – to go beyond that is quite admirable! 🙂

Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

I really, really enjoy what I do between publishing books and publishing online. I can’t imagine ever retiring – I think I would go crazy from the boredom! But when I’m not working, I love to garden, collect vintage stuff, make homemade soaps and cosmetics, go on day trips with my family, and we are an avid boating family.

Is there anything else you would like to share with my readers?

I totally agree with your recommendation for preppers to take up adult coloring as an activity! It promotes stress relief and mindfulness, needs no electricity, is affordable and accessible for most ability levels, and can help you kill HOURS at a time!

The Giveaway

Wendy and her publisher, Ulysses Press, have reserved three copies of Coloring Flower Mandalas in this newest Book Festival Giveaway.

The deadline is 6:00 PM Pacific Tuesday with the winner notified by email and announced on the Rafflecopter in the article. Please note that the winner must claim their book within 48 hours or an alternate will be selected.

Note: This giveaway is only open to individuals with a mailing address in the United States.

The Final Word

Those of you that have been following me for awhile know I have a quirky side. My obsession with coloring is a quirk that has provided stress relief on more levels than you can imagine. Add some music or an audiobook and calming essential oils in the diffuser and I am good to go.

For materials, other than Wendy’s book, of course, I recommend a set of pencils with lots or colors as well as gel pens for accent work. Prices have really come down on coloring tools lately so really, there is no excuse for not getting started.

Artist’s Choice 100 Gel Pens with Case Extra Large Set: Also from Artists Choice is the gel pen set. Note that over half of the pens are metallic or glittery so if you want something plainer, this is not the set for you. As of this writing, $19.99 although I paid $24.99 for this same set in July 2016.

For over 25 years Emergency Essentials has been providing the highest quality preparedness products at great prices. Plus, each month they feature sales that quite honestly are fantastic. This month give the gift preparedness.

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Comments

What stress? LOL. Right now I am trying to put my worries to the side by focusing on my (upcoming) retirement. What am I going to do with myself? How often can we travel to see the grand kids not living near us. How often can I go see the other grand kids before DIL says ENOUGH(LOL)Just kidding I think Son 2 and wife can’t wait for Gramma to retire and have more time to spend with them and the kids. I’m formulating a plan of attack for cleaning and organizing my supplies better AND cleaning out ALL the junk we’ve acquired over the last few years. Haven’t quite gotten rid of the anxiety that I’m far, far behind in my preparations but it’s getting easier 6 more months to go WHOO HOO!!

In addition to coloring (a new stress reducer), I do jigsaw puzzles, light reading, and small tactile crafts (embroidery, wool felt, decoupage) that I do by myself. I think a great group stress reducing activity is board games of all kinds.

I enjoy coloring. It provides a creative outlet that I otherwise would not have. I am also an avid reader. Being 100% disabled for 23 years has changed my outlook on life greatly. So has raising two of my grandchildren by myself for the past 10 years. I just gimp around and get things done.

My stress reliever is to attend to my gardens, both flowers and fruits & vegetables. I love every aspect of gardening, including the execution of aphids by spraying them with a mixture of liquid dish soap and water. Ooooohhh.. I have a dark side !!!
Thanks Gaye, for all you do. Love Backdoor Survival !!!

I don’t think stressing about prepping helps. Plenty of other things to stress about but I’m working on it. Just keeping up with prepper articles helps. Yoga/exercise and prayer/scripture reading helps me a lot.

I am totally addicted to these new coloring books for adults. My oldest stepson gave me one featuring elaborate drawings of birds at Christmas. I have gobs of colored pencils, pens, markers, etc., as I am a crafter, so this was right up my alley. The amazing thing, though, is that coloring these complex designs TRULY relaxes your mind. There is more and more research out there showing that it affects our brains like meditation does. Very cool. I’ve got several coloring books stashed with my basement supplies for when the power goes out. 😉

I keep seeing these “adult” coloring books and how they relieve stress. I’m afraid I’ll be thinking about the 50 million things that I need to do the whole time I’m coloring but going to give it a try. Way safer than prescription drugs! Excuse this red line. Can’t get rid of it this morning.

Reading has always been my escape and my relief for stress. But I do so remember how much I liked coloring books and crayons as a child. Winning one of these books would be a great excuse for me to buy a big 64 box of crayons–if Crayola still makes them. (It has been a very long time since I was in the kids’ area of any store!)

Connect with Me

MEET GAYE

I'm Gaye, just an ordinary gal trying to make sense of our changing world. I am addicted to prepping, DIY projects, adult coloring books, and ballroom dancing. I live what I call a strategic life and believe you should too. Everyone needs to prepare for the worst and live for the best. Won't you join me?

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